What opinion just makes you look like you aged 30 years
I’m not subscribing to anything. If I buy something, it’s fully functional, and it’s mine. There is no ongoing relationship between me and the manufacturer. Done.
I mean, that’s basically what FOSS is about.
And that’s why we use it.
Especially when it comes to expensive equipment like cars, computers, printers, etc.
who doesn’t want a subscription for heated seats on their $100k car? /s
The only thing I’m willing to pay a subscription for are the essentials that have no product alternative, i.e. utilities - power, water, Internet. I refuse to pay for streaming when they used to sell DVDs and CDs with the same content. I refuse to pay for game subscription services when you used to be able to buy the games outright. I refuse to pay for software-as-a-service or bullshit like cloud service integrations for smart home stuff. If I don’t own it, I don’t buy it.
At least for utilities you can reframe it as paying for parcels of utility, and then consuming them, like you do for food. Middleman bullshit like cloud services that refuse to let you just self-host can screw off. Having to spend money to spend extra resources to deal with a 3rd party is obnoxious, doubly so when they just decide they don’t want to support it anymore and pull the plug.
I’m working on this, the subscription model has gotten so expensive now that literally everything uses it. Do you have any tips besides “just pirate everything”?
Just pirate some of the things?
you know, I (supposedly - you cant prove anything, mr. prosecutor) may have done this as a kid. then I hopped hardcore on to the FLOSS bandwagon and never looked back. everything I need I can find as a FLOSS package (firmware often excluded, of course). all the learning that I (supposedly) did through the “hack” as a kid now goes into writing original code and supporting open source software. FLOSS literally (may have) made an honest man out of me :-)
Depends on the media, buy from bandcamp, steam
Bandcamp is the move.
Use free or at least alternatives without a subscription model where possible
For cars? Just buy one that’s a bit older
Movies etc? Pirate
I’ve wanted an EV for years, but I’m sticking with my very old and fuel-efficient ICE car until it’s absolutely dead. At that point, I’m hoping that some model of EV emerges as the most hackable one, like the Nissan Leaf. I’ll buy a very used one of those & hack it.
The best thing that you can do for the world is but less shit that you don’t need.
Unfortunately the only alternative for some things are becoming very tech literate and running an objectively worse mediocre open source software
This is what I’m resorting to. Instead of pirating Lightroom, I’m using RawTherapee for my (non-professional) photo editing of my x100t photos. In the old days, I’d have done it (I still have a very old version of LR exe in one of my hard drives) but today I’d rather not have a ton of keygens and crap on my laptop.
Anything that doesn’t incur an ongoing cost to provide should be legally prohibited from being sold as a “subscription.”
Not everything needs a law against it. I’m just not going to buy into their fucked up system.
Except more and more companies are hopping on this gravy train because they can get away with it. At some point (and that point may be now already, depending on the sector), it’s going to be difficult-to-impossible to buy anything without this subscription bullshit.
We’ll find a way. Right now, I’m mostly concerned about cars. That’s going to be an interesting problem over the next few years.
@TheBaldness Do you pay taxes? It’s literally a subscription on the state :)
Only because the late fees and collection agencies are to die for :)
Single player modes in games shouldn’t require internet connection.
Music in restaurants and bars is just too loud. I know why the music is loud, but I am still going to shake my fist at it like Grandpa Simpson.
It was totally uncool to remove the headphone jack from my device, man.
I doubt you’ll find anyone here that disagrees with you. I was going to get an older pixel but I got a 6 instead and I’m still grieving the loss of my headphone jack.
At least we can get USB-C headphones and use the charging port as a headphone jack.
But then you can’t charge at the same time, no good if you want to plug your phone into some speakers and charge it at the same time
Wireless charging?
My take: cables are a sustainable, effective and ELEGANT solution. Most wireless solutions fall under the definition of over-engineering.
Cable: a properly lengthened cheap rope that magically transfers information, power and anchor stuff together.
Wireless: two antenna, encoding of all kind, radiations, BATTERIES, higher chance to lose stuff, degrading of quality (Bluetooth).
Inefficient, over priced, less reliable
Cars shouldn’t be loaded with user-facing technology. Bring back analog dashboards and buttons for climate control!
I just want to be able to adjust the stereo without looking away from the road. Is that too much to ask?
Interesting fact: I just got a new ev (so a battery hooked up to a computer with wheels) - and it has buttons! It also has dials for sound and climate.
Now to be fair it also takes interacting with a touchscreen to turn on the heated seats, but I’d say it’s progress in the right direction.
What EV did you buy?
Iconiq 5. I can honestly say I really enjoy it (and I’m not a car person).
Bring back stick-shift, too. People shouldn’t be driving if they have no grasp of the mass and inertia of their car. We should be able to disengage the engine at will. And we should have to pay attention when we drive.
I hate the touch screen climate control, especially when’s it’s cold and it takes the touch screen awhile to get started…
GIVE ME BACK MY DAMN 3.5MM HEADPHONE JACK ON MY PHONE!!!
This but with SD cards
User replaceable batteries
Rip my LGV10. May you bootloop in peace
I’ve been voting with my wallet on this one for years- no headphone jack, no purchase
It’s becoming super difficult now to be honest. I think I’m about to bite the bullet this weekend and just get a usb-c to 3.5mm adapter although it pains me deeply.
What phone do you use??? I’m looking at the S23 at the moment but I’m still on an S8 lol
I’m on a Sony Xperia 10 IV now. Amazing battery life, decent for one-handed use, has a headphone jack, SD slot, and meh camera. Mostly solid overall- agree the situation’s getting worse and worse every year
I remember switching to Android because you could replace the battery and expand storage, and those were huge selling points. But now my phone has none of those things. Although I guess a lot of stuff is in the cloud.
No question, removing swappable batteries was pretty brazenly consumer-hostile.
One of the main reasons I’m 100% on board with stuff like the Pinephone, at least in theory (just wish Linux phones were actually ready to be used as phones… maybe in another couple of years).
I know it had its issues but I was pretty sad that the LG G5 sort of compromise where you got the removable battery while still not “looking cheap” never really went anyway.
Xiaomi Redmi10. Cheap and has a 3.5mm.
Amen
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Burnt by the OnePlus X, otherwise I would be interested in this.
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The very same. My music app used to randomly commit suicide if I had the audacity to try opening a web page at the same time. Or sometimes just for the hell of it. I’m ashamed to admit that I queued for 3 hours to get that phone.
I don’t want to have a subscription for everything. It used to be possible to pay a one-time fee for software and use it as long as I want. Now I have to pay a monthly fee and once I finish paying, I can’t use the software anymore. And it’s not like I constantly get updates for the software. Often it stays the same for months or years.
I understand that software has a price, but no way these prices are sometimes justified…
I agree, but from a !piracy perspective
I’m always on the hunt for self hosted/open source solutions.
Smart tech in general is annoying and dumb. I want my TV to just be a tv with inputs, I don’t need built in firmware and updates to shove ads in my face. I don’t want my car to have a touch screen to adjust the A/C, just give me a knob or buttons.
I DO NOT WANT MY TV TO HAVE A FUCKING CAMERA OR A MICROPHONE
We need electric vehicles with the interiors and exteriors copied from consumer cars from the 90s.
Like that Hyundai concept? That thing was rad. I’d drive the hell out of an EV that looks like an AE86.
Oh man, I had never seen those concept cars before, literally EXACTLY what I want in a vehicle lmao
I think that one is pretty popular. Popular “smart” products are usually only smart to and make the manufacturer some extra scratch after sale.
And car touchscreens are either disliked, considered a status symbol, or considered necessary in order toobtains another feature. Very few people actually like them.
Car-ware is the absolute worst. I remember reading an article on Hacker News 10 years ago saying they should just be a blank canvas that our cellphone decides what goes on it.
100% agreed.
Like, cram android onto an underpowered SOC and it’s just incredibly frustrating to use.
Digital privacy is important, and it’s important to be anonymous on the internet
I have three:
- They don’t make things like they used to
- We don’t need all these damned computers in everything
- Modern music sounds like crap
I’m 17.
I think two out of those believes stem from survivorship bias. You think of old music and consumer products as superior because the only ones that “survived” are the good ones. No one remembers bad music from 50 years ago, and for every old thermos flask/blender/knife that you see around there are dozens that broke years ago.
There was song from the 60s (supposedly the best music everyone tells me) called “7 little girls”. The chorus went “7 little girls sitting the back seat kissing and hugging with Fred”
Thankfully a mostly forgotten song now, but a clear example of how bloody awful pop music is not a new phenomenon.
That’s fair.
I say yes for the music one, maybe not for the first. There are literally different materials being used and increasingly optimised-for-profit-to-effort-ratio processes. Many things are just straight up made more cheaply because we have the technology to do that.
Although for the music one, a relevant lyric comes to mind:
Hip hop? Buddy, don’t get me started
So how do you get yourself charted?
Kids love this stuff 'cause it’s so new
Put in a sample from a pop song too
You’ve got a hit, how come it sold?
The melody and it’s 30 years old!
Hip hop is pretty mainstream now but it started as counter culture. And I don’t think a sample in a song makes it similar to the sampled song. A lot of tracks that rely on samples completely create something new. Look at J Dilla who relied almost entirely on samples. His music isn’t a collection of old songs, it’s entirely new songs. I guess this thread is for boomer takes.
Or the Prodigy, who relied almost entirely on samples yet made some of the most exciting music we had ever heard.
My theory on the first one is that it’s usually hard to make things cheap and consistent, so it often starts off as bad, then good but expensive, and then trends towards and past “good enough”
Modern music is fire when you know where to look but I’ve always felt like pop music has been taking a very slow weird turn. It seems like 1970s and earlier it was mostly good, and mostly good after, but at this point I’m just confused
Algorithms that try to suggest me content are universally bad, and all searches should provide results based solely on the terms, syntax, and language entered. Same with anything that tries to provide me content based on data harvested about my location or demographic.
All the content on my feed should come from unpersonalized suggestions, or the communities i choose to follow. 👍
I like that Lemmy and Masto don’t have those fucking algorithms. It’s a relief.
What is your opinion on Bluesky? Their default feed is chronological, but they do have algorithms. They’re actually moving towards custom algorithms, so you can build your own or use someone else’s, delete, pin, reorder them. It’s like different feeds. I like that implementation personally.
I couldn’t say, they’re closed to new users. I’ve been on the wait list for a long time, but no joy.
I’m skeptical that it ultimately won’t just turn into Twitter 2.0
Actually, the waitlist takes way too much time. I just went on Twitter and found a couple of people with invites. I don’t have one yet, but would you want one when I do?
Sure, I’ll give it a go, thank you for thinking of me. The whole bullshit with Twitter and now Reddit has me feeling pretty burned on corporate-owned social media, so I’m likely to stick with federated things like Masto, Lemmy, etc., but I’ll give it a go. I am curious about it. I wonder why they’re leaning so hard on the waitlist thing? They’re losing precious adoption time, as people are right now wanting to move away from Twitter. Or rather, they have been wanting that for months, so there may already be a lot of lost opportunity re: user attention or interest.
I think it has its place but it should absolutely be optional. Yeah they suck but the YouTube algorithm is responsible for like 70% of my knowledge base.
I miss accidentally finding the most random stuff on YouTube way back before they started pushing monetized content, but it’s been a very long time
I feel like algorithms when done well are amazing. Like, the YouTube Music algorithm is so great for music, I just start playing a song and it takes it from there. Unlike Spotify, which has gone downhill these days, I never feel the need to skip a song on YTM.
The issue is that they rely on “related” content. I would much prefer an elimination system.
I used to be mad at algorythms suggesting things that is disliked. But then I realised that it would be rather scary if they were right.
Never have I ever benefited from Google or Amazon or anyone changing my search string for me. Even if I do misspell something, I’m gonna click on the “did you mean x instead?” link myself, because I don’t trust the 50/50 mixed results anyway. But 90% of the time I’m gonna be immediately scrambling to put the double quotes back in, which it’s also gonna ignore half the time.
Hard agree. Sometimes I’m searching for something very specific and esoteric, and the results spam me with unrelated nonsense because the search engine thinks it knows better than I do
Some alternative frontends resolve this. Invidious for example is a youtube front end. There are public instances. Most popular sites have them.
Yes! I’ve started using Invidious more and more when I’m on PC, but there are also addons that make YouTube itself more tolerable.
I’ve been using LibreTube on my Android phone, and it’s so much better.
Yeah.
Invidious is pretty good in android Firefox like when you “add to homescreen”. The other browser add-ons won’t avoid the algorithm I think?
I use newpipe. I found libretube seemed to stop working more than newpipe but maybe time for another look!
I was actually using newpipe + sponsorblock before switching to Libretube. There’s only been once that I’ve had to manually switch the piped instance so far, but I just prefer Libretube’s UI. Newpipe worked great, too. Both very good apps. You can’t go wrong with either imo
Cities are too car-oriented
- The internet was way better before it became a giant shopping mall.
- Those cars that don’t have the flecks in the paint look like children’s toys.
Then, I have a couple that pre-date even boomers by many years 😅:
- Handkerchiefs kick the shit out of paper tissues.
- Cars have made the world a worse place.
Sneaker culture is incredibly weird. Shoes made by children in China with a limited edition color are in such high demand that there are sites where people refresh F5 constantly hoping to have the honor to pay hundreds and hundreds for shoes that cost $7.50 to make. Then half of the time people won’t even wear them outside, they’ll put them in a bag and change shoes when they get to work or whatever. Or some might not even wear the shoes at all and just display them.
I’m an old soul in this sense. I love a quality goodyear welted shoe, and made in USA, UK, or Italy usually. An Allen Edmonds strandmok is a fantastic everyday shoe for me. I like to purchase nice things in general, use them, take care of them. I really hate throwaway culture as well.
Please nobody hate me for this, I’m a bit self conscious being an admin of my own instance and don’t want to piss people off haha. If you’re into gym shoe culture that’s awesome. If I knew you in real life I’d probably make fun of you for a minute if I saw you walking outside in socks carrying your $400 limited edition sneakers, but then you can make fun of me for one of the thousands of things I do and it’s all in good fun.
I don’t think you’re alone in that. I don’t even think it’s a thing that makes you sound older. That’s a niche hobby that some folks have like collecting miniatures.
I unserstand miniature collectors more than sneakerheads. There are only so many variations of sneakers but almost infinite miniatures of whatever
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